Will

He tumbled free of one place into another, black grass crunching beneath him. He crawled to his knees, arms impossibly heavy, and managed to drag his sword up just in time to parry a fiery explosion sent his way.

He barely knew where he was. His enemy was still clear enough, though.

Brimstone looked better than Will felt, but not by much. Most of his armor had been torn off, leaving only maybe a third of his breastplate, one pauldron, one greave, and one gauntlet. He was covered in his own blood, large wounds merrily spurting more down his front, and nearly half his face had been torn clean off, leaving a gory ruin in its place.

"Having… fun?" Will panted.

Brimstone did not reply.

Will couldn't quite summon the level of self-delusion needed to think he could come out of this on top. He was finished. He'd been finished. His rope had run out two days ago; by now, he had no idea what was keeping him moving aside from sheer spite.

So maybe he couldn't win. But maybe he could take Brimstone with him.

The lord let a blaze engulf his whole body without breaking stride. Cauterizing his wounds, Will realized once it winked out. But he'd badly fried his already battered flesh in the process, leaving him browned and blackened and crackling all over like a hunk of barbecued meat. One of his eyeballs popped, its fluid leaking down his cheek in a bubbling dribble. He didn't seem to notice.

Will sat back on his heels, gave up on standing. Just as well to conserve his energy, since Brimstone seemed intent on coming to him. Stupid of him. He wanted to get close, enact some intimate, personal form of vengeance. The fact that it would bring him within convenient knifing distance didn't seem to have occurred to him.

And with most of his armor gone, he made a wonderful target.

All of a sudden, a fog descended over the area, obscuring Brimstone from view. Will didn't have enough of his mental faculties left to understand what had caused it, blinking stupidly at the billowing sheets of gray that surrounded him. Brimstone, it seemed, had kept a touch more of his mind, if none of his sanity. With a sweep of fire, he wiped away what was apparently an Illusion, sent a handful of glassy shards scattering on the hot wind.

"Appreciate the effort, Serene…" Will chuckled.

[As Serene's Illusion is dispelled, she is already lining up a third shot. She pretends to pull the trigger, but Brimstone does not react. He has learned to ignore the false inputs.]

Brimstone was ten feet away—a looming shadow made fuzzy at the edges with the smoke that rose from his withered form. "Traitorrrrrr…" he hissed. "Thiiiiieeeeef…"

"Loooserrrr," Will mocked.

Just a bit closer…

Brimstone seemed to register his eagerness. He smiled a wide, awful smile, and said:

"Semblance Art: Hell Visor."

Fresh armor plating sprouted from his body like fungus on a tree, covering the scraps of the old. As it grew in, Will's sliver of hope evaporated. In moments, Brimstone's face was covered by a twisted mask, and he stood tall in his full flaming armor once more.

He'd already noted that Brimstone had recovered his SP crystal. Of course he could simply recast it when it suited him.

I should have seen it coming…

[When Serene puts her finger on the trigger for the fourth time, Brimstone does not react. He already knows her trick.]

A loud whipcrack echoed over the scorched parkland. Brimstone stumbled back, chips flying off his helmet. The gunshot had taken off a fist-sized chunk of his helmet around his right cheek, charred flesh showing through.

It wasn't much of an opening.

But it was an opening.

Tipping his weight forward, Will brought his sword up, made to put all his energy into one last Dash…

Something yanked hard at his arm. Popped his knuckles, his elbow, even his shoulder clean out of their sockets, and kept on prying until he was bent back and gasping.

<Stuuuuupid!>

<You think you can control us?>

<Pathetic!>

The fucking wraiths. They'd waited, he realized. Until he was too weak to resist. Until the worst possible time.

They kept twisting his arm around until it was contorted almost into a sickening knot. He felt his muscles tearing, tendons stretching…

<You think you can enslave us?>

<HAHAHAHAHAHA!>

<Not a chance.>

<The hubris of the living.>

<But we'll take that away too!>

<Now you die.>

<Now you will know how it feels!>

<Yes!>

<Yes!>

<Yeeeeees!>

<YOUR DEATH COMES!!!>

His eye rolled back. Everything went black again. He fought against it without success. Aware of his body only in the vaguest sense, he felt something snap. Not in his arm. In his head. Something important, he thought.

He slowly seeped back into himself, could feel his own twitching, distorted body and the acrid air scraping his lungs. Except he couldn't see. Everything was a dark blur. He blinked, but that made it no better. A loud, insistent whine was piercing his ears, and drowned out all other sound.

He had somehow managed to let go of the sword, probably on account of his hand being broken beyond use, snapped this way and that until it was just a throbbing ball of pain at the end of his folded wrist.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Brimstone was coming. He couldn't see more than a vague blotch moving, but he knew the enemy was almost on him. Somehow, his left hand found the sword hilt while scrabbling in the ash. He brought it up. A gauntleted fist closed around the blade. It glowed, brighter and brighter until it was a vertical white line in Will's nonexistent field of vision.

It shattered. He tumbled. The world seemed to be spinning forever. Even when he regained his sense of place, the ground still rocked crazily. A blob of orange burned in his vision. Flame. Brimstone was getting ready to fire something off.

He still had Anathema clutched in his cramping left fist. What was left of it, anyway. Tapping it sightlessly against his chest confirmed that it was just the hilt and a bit under a foot of jagged steel. The rest had been scattered he knew not where.

I wouldn't say no to a valor surge about now, Will thought bitterly. Or is this not a heroic enough sacrifice for you?

No divine intervention was forthcoming.

Fine. Screw you, too.

Whatever Brimstone was cooking up over there, he seemed to be taking his time. That meant it had to be some special kind of hell, liable to reduce him to a pair of smoking boots if he didn't get out of the way. Only his legs weren't working, and he didn't have the fingers free to exert any AP, and he was too skill fatigued to make use of it even if he had.

What he did have was a broken sword. He wasn't sure if it still retained its Cancel effect in its current state. One idea came to him. A stupid one, sure, but his smarts had been knocked clean out of him a good while ago.

What have I got to lose? Might as well go for broke.

Will chuckled to himself. Or tried to. He ended up just gurgling drool down his chin. Brimstone's orange light grew and shrank, grew and shrank. Compressing his flames down to form the ultimate traitor killer. And Will waited, hissing for air, trying to be patient. Waited until the light swelled up, looked like it was getting to blow.

He hurled his broken sword, skin peeling off his palm as he released the hilt. If it could thread the needle, Cancelling the explosion that came his way and taking Brimstone while he was fully committed to his attack and unable to dodge, maybe…

Heat washed over him. He tumbled in a haze of gray and black and orange. Stopped. Held his breath—partially because he couldn't really breathe good anyway. Wheeled his head around. Blinked furiously, unable to clear the fog from his eye. Tried to see…

Something moved. A big, dark shape. Coming for him.

Will exhaled bitterly. He'd failed. Go figure. Maybe he'd actually split the explosion as intended on account of not being dead yet, but threading the needle to hit the hole in Brimstone's helmet evidently had not turned out as planned. He tried to rub enough neurological activity together for another stupid idea, but he'd already scraped the bottom of his trick bag clean. Not even a bit of lint left in there.

<Wait.>

<Can you hear that?>

<What is that sound?>

"Will you shut up?" Will sighed tiredly. At the very least, he'd hoped throwing Anathema away would spare him from listening to their whining.

Discourteously, they ignored him.

<That awful sound…>

<Someone make it stop.>

<I don't like this.>

<I'm scared…>

<Please be quiet!>

<Please make it stop!>

Something bright and gold and warm flashed; filled his entire vision, such as it was. The screeching in his ears gave way to a brilliant thrum of deep bassy strings that filled him with an indescribable sense of well-being.

[Valor surge.]

Suddenly, his vision snapped into perfect, almost painful focus. A shaft of divine light had pierced the oppressive darkness in the sky, ripped a hole in the black fabric stretched across the firmament to let through a patch of blue sky and glittering sunlight.

The pillar of skittering, golden lightning hit the earth only a few feet in front of him, thick as a man was tall, emitting a powerful wind in all directions that blasted away the blackened vegetation and left the ground bare. The light stretched over onto him, enfolded him… but he knew at once that this power was not his doing.

It belonged to the figure standing in the light, straight-backed and broad-shouldered, arms thrown wide, seeming almost impossibly tall. She had her back turned; looked over her shoulder at him. Short, coppery hair whipped about her head.

Her wide, radiant grin was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"I've got you, bro," Sam said.

Will had one moment of perfect relief, deflating into a pile of broken parts. Then he stiffened. Distantly, the air swelled with draconic rage.

"Sam… no, please… Not you. You need to—"

[Boom.]

[A blast with enough explosive yield to shred a tank hits Sam Darling. A fraction of a second later, it hits Will Greene. They are sent flying.]

[However…]

[They are not killed by the impact.]

[A principal rule of valor surges is that they cannot inflict lethal damage. But this does not describe the full extent of its effect. It does not only apply to the target of a valor surge, but anyone caught within its influence. In other words, any damage inflicted against a person inside a valor surge becomes non-lethal.]

[For the duration of a valor surge, anyone caught within…]

[...is effectively…]

[UNKILLABLE (trademark pending)]

Will ragdolled bonelessly, flipping, dark earth surging past him, then replaced by the even darker sky with its small patch of blue. And on, and on, and on. He had no hope of landing on his feet, so he didn't even try. If he landed on his neck, then so be it.

[Surge reversal.]

He was forcefully yanked through the air, dragged in a different direction as though reeled in along a line of rope. Then he felt an impact as another body was magnetized to his, and strong arms wrapped around him, and he was filled with the knowledge that someone had him.

They landed, tumbled, grunting and groaning until at last they came to a violent stop against an unkempt piece of topiary. Sam was half-sitting, neck propped against the dense shrubbery. She held him tight, his face resting in her hand, and looked down on him with her big, open, blue eyes. She had a new scar on her face, running from jaw to hairline. The last golden sparks faded and disappeared.

Sam looked exhausted, but she was still smiling.

"Hey, handsome…" she panted. "What's a place like this… doing in a guy like you? Fuck. You know what I… what I mean."

"You're early," Will remarked.

That made her smile all the wider. "A hero always shows up just in time."

"And never misses a chance at a quippy one-liner, apparently."

Sam nodded seriously. "Exactly." She was breathing huge, heavy breaths, nostrils flared, lifting him up each time her chest inflated. "Dude, I'm so tired… let me catch my… Fuck. Ran all the way here from… Greensby."

"You would do something as stupid as that. No wonder you're drenched."

He looked over and saw Brimstone limping toward them some fifty feet away, breathing plumes of steam. A chunk of his twisted helmet missing on his right side, and the hilt of Will's sword jutting out like a horn on the left amid a fine spider web of cracks.

Huh. Guess I didn't completely miss. That's comforting.

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful…" Will said. "...but unless you've got Big Deal Buck in your back pocket, I think we're dead."

"Oh, he's here! He just told me to buy some time for—"

A storm of rainbow fireworks erupted in the sky with a deafening cacophony of bangs and crackles. From the great sparkling cloud of color swooped a formation of luminous winged horses, a rain of glittering gold coins, nude angels with bright laughs and sweetly singing instruments.

"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…" cried a screeching, too-loud voice. "...PEOPLE OF THIS FAIR CITY OF SHEERHOME…" It appeared to belong to a spray painted little cherub flitting among the popping fireworks on tiny wings, holding a gleaming scepter to his mouth. Golden Boy. "YOUR CHAMPION… HAS ARRIVED!!!"

At the northern end of the campus grounds, a pink cloud whooshed up and billowed high into the air, forming tiny mushroom clouds at its peak that turned into love hearts slowly dispersing with the wind. A rangy, lean-muscled, half-clothed man emerged from the smoke. He strutted jauntily with a huge grin and what looked like a shamisen propped lazily up on one shoulder.

"Hey, hey!" called Big Deal Buck with his free hand cupping his mouth, headed right for Brimstone. "Long time no see, my friend! I hope you didn't miss me too much!"

The lord whipped away from Will and Sam to face the new threat; arms dangling, hunched low like a dog about to pounce.

"Youuuuuu…" he snarled.

"Meeheehee!" Buck snickered gleefully.

Brimstone's armor raced with surging flames. The gaps of his carapace lifted to let out harsh gray fumes. A fiery tongue flickered from the mouth of his visor.

"Straight to business, I see," Buck said, and flipped his instrument down to hold it in both hands. He plucked at the three strings with one and fiddled with the tuning pegs with the other. "All right. Business it is."

Brimstone growled.

Buck strummed a chord.

And Will held his breath.

After everything they had thrown at the beast that he'd just walked through, it didn't seem so certain anymore that one cocky Entertainer would be enough to tip the scales.

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